Still, I think it’s yes obscure, but damn awesome.

The grimiest record to get to number one ever?

I happen to think it’s a belter and the references to Lady Chatterley and Lolita are most amusing and should be taken in the tongue-in-cheek manor Ray Dorset intended them. Mungo Jerry, it must be remembered, were a fun band and “Baby Jump” is a busting little piece of honky tonk rock. Credence could have used it.

ALso, this was another one of those “maxi-singles” where you got a b-side on the same side as the A, and a 15 minute “live” recording of two tracks on the actual b-side.

This is the era when that postal strike precluded Record Retailer from compiling an album chart (Guinness books used to award Bridge Over Troubled Water an unbroken run across this period, but they were persuaded to use an alternative source in later editions). Maybe the postmen were picketing outside record shops and one person managed to scrape through and buy this. ;-)

“She wears those see-through sweaters, she likes to wear her stockings black
And if I see her tonight, you can bet your life I’ll attack”

Could be part of the reason it doesn’t get played on oldies radio!

which is not to say sting can’t be MONUMENTALLY PRETENTIOUS at time — and may have been being so here also (i don’t actually think he pulls the device off properly — this line sequence in fact comes across more like objective POV than (as i’m suggesting it shd be heard as) harassed clever pupil POV: “It’s no use, he sees her/He starts to shake and cough/Just like the old man in/That book by Nabakov”)

i have a fondness for the “dark sting” period, where he wz takin the role of creepy pervs and makin them the “hero” of his pop hits

I would also lump in Smoky going on about Pagliacci! Either the audience is opera-hip enough to know who Pagliacci is or they’re not. If they are, then the song’s borrowing of that trope will be immediately obvious, and dropping the reference doesn’t add anything to the song, since it’s just one line that (like most of the lyrics to this underwritten track) just recapitulates the main point of the song: He’s a clown with tears. If the audience doesn’t know Pagliacci, then the lyric is going to sail right over their heads. Why put it in there, except to try and make the song sound smart and grown-up?

I should add that MJ did go on to make two genuinely likeable singles circa 1973/74 – first (the confusingly titled) “Alright Alright Alright”, and secondly “Longlegged Woman Dressed In Black”. In fact if anyone has an mp3 of the latter they could YSI, I’d really appreciate it.

A few months back I borrowed from our local library a box set compilation of early 70s pop which had a whole bunch of Mungo Jerry UK hits on it (they had eight Top 40 singles in toto). I copied these tracks onto my work computer – and at the moment they’re still sitting there cos I don’t really know what to do with them. But they are of interest – and make me wonder who bought MJ records and how the group was generally regarded at the time.

What struck me particularly is how diverse their hits were. “Lady Rose” is a slight retread of “In The Summertime” (with a little of Rod Stewart’s “Maggie May” thrown in) but, that apart, they all adopt different styles. For example, only “Baby Jump” has this gravelly Tom Waits-meets-Animal-from-The-Muppets vocal style. And while the lyrics to 2Baby Jump” are certainly dodgy, I do quite enjoy the vocal delivery of them. There are other minor pleasures here too: the guitar solo which is almost entirely one-note (albeit with octave leaping), the overuse of the piano glissandi, the sheer moronicness of the whole thing – which the false ending only enhances (notice that what happens after the “alrightalrightalright” bit seems to be a full-on repeat of what preceded it.